


Cantabile

by sketchedsilmaril



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games), Star Wars: The High Republic (Marvel Comics 2021), Star Wars: The High Republic: Light of the Jedi - Charles Soule
Genre: Battle Meditation, Elzar Mann - mentioned, Force Lore & Mythology (Star Wars), Gen, KOTOR lore, Stellan Gios - mentioned, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:53:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29884848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sketchedsilmaril/pseuds/sketchedsilmaril
Summary: 1. cantabile (musical term): in a singing style.She could hear layers upon layers of shimmering notes and timbre calling to her from some deep, fathomless distance.A young Avar Kriss finds herself drawn to the oldest of archives, called forth by her burgeoning powers. A small glimpse into how Avar might have discovered her special ability from Light of the Jedi, with a little help from an old, wise Master.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	Cantabile

**Author's Note:**

> I loved seeing a Battle Meditation-esque power in Light of the Jedi (kotor canon CRUMBS), and given how rare the ability is, I couldn't help but want our two Battle Meditation-wielding ladies meet each other in some way or form.

“What is it you seek to find, little one?”

Avar jumped, dropping the holobook held loosely in her hand. Whirling around, she smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry, Master Yaddle. I thought—I thought I heard something back here. But it must be nothing.”

Yaddle hummed, hobbling closer. “Nothing, you say? And yet linger you still do, when young Stellan and Elzar left long ago.” Eyes twinkling, Yaddle leaned in, a wry tilt in her wrinkles. “Quite unlike you, little one. Joined at the hips, I thought you three.”

Blushing, Avar looked down. “I heard something,” she echoed once again, “But they didn’t. So I stayed.” She fingered the soft thread of her sleeve in thought, the scritch-scratch sound of the cloth soothing her.

“Troubled by that, you are?” Yaddle inquired.

Troubled. Was that enough to describe what she felt? She wanted to share with Stellan and Elzar the things she heard—the barely-there sounds that had begun emerging to her senses, a half-snatched melody that escaped her the moment she grasped for it, but every time, like today, her words never seemed to quite reach them.

Solemn Stellan had frowned in thought and suggested they ask their instructors or consult with the archivists tomorrow. Elzar, too, seemed puzzled before the two departed, and even the warm grip of his hand around hers as he brazenly tried to ask her out for dinner again (a long-running joke of theirs, since they all ate together in a communal dining hall anyways) couldn’t convince or cheer her up the way it usually did.

She, Stellan, and Elzar were as close as ever, but ever since they had traveled to Ilum to retrieve their first kyber crystals, things seemed… off. Whereas once it had been like they were of one mind, now more than ever it seemed like they were—splitting away.

Yaddle seemed to take Avar’s silence as an answer. “Sit with me a moment, young Kriss—my hips and knees can’t keep up with you younglings like they used to,” Yaddle said, unceremoniously folding herself into a seat and patting the ground next to her. After a beat of hesitation, Avar slid down, leaning against a shelf, and waited. The holobook units were warm against her back, and Avar could feel herself relaxing into it just a little bit.

“To Ilum, you three traveled recently?” Yaddle asked after a moment.

Avar nodded.

“Seen many young Jedi pass through these halls, I have,” Yaddle began, “And with many of the same worries as you, they had.”

“They did?” asked Avar hopefully. “Really?”

“Indeed they did, young one,” Yaddle reassured, her green-gold eyes luminous in the glow of the holorecords surrounding them. “It is of _change_ that plagues you, no?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Avar said with relief. Like an unwritten symphony, the words spilled out of her. “Things just don’t feel the same somehow. Before, it was like we understood each other without even trying, but now… it just seems harder.”

Though she didn’t describe it out loud, images rose up in her mind’s eye–of Elzar’s unfocused gaze turned inwards in some deep place where she couldn’t reach, of Stellan drifting off to the scholars’ sessions for hours of debate, and of herself, chasing half-remembered songs that called her to unseen stars.

“But we are still the closest of friends,” Avar hurried to add on, catching sight of Yaddle’s thoughtful expression. “We still eat, learn, and talk together, and so much between us is still the same, but it’s like—” Avar stopped. The thought of saying her true feelings out loud made her gut twist.

“Like paths separating?” said Yaddle gently.

“I suppose so,” Avar admitted, "Yes." She fidgeted with her fingers.

“Normal, this is,” Yaddle said patiently. “To be worried, even afraid of change. But our own person, each one of us are. Natural it is, that all of us must find our own ways in the Force, even if we cannot return to a time that once was.”

“Let go and accept what we cannot change,” Avar said. “I’ve studied the Code inside and out, but it doesn’t seem easy.”

“Nothing easy is worth following. But guide you, perhaps I can,” Yaddle replied. “Know of the Temple trees, do you, young Kriss?”

The large, golden leafed tree in the central courtyard flashed through Avar’s mind, and she nodded.

“Each leaf, a Jedi is, and grow from different branches we do. In different directions—up, down, to the side—we grow as well. But follow each branch to their beginning, and what do we find?”

“We find… the trunk.”

“Good,” Yaddle said approvingly. “Different though we may be, but come from the same place, we all do, and return to the same place, we can and will. So take heart, Avar Kriss,” Yaddle continued, reaching out with a small hand to lay it comfortingly on Avar’s knee. “Not separated you will be from Stellan Gios or Elzar Mann. Connected by the same tree, you all are. We all are.”

Avar smiled softly, tracing the embroidered pattern on her boots. The smallest seed of doubt still rooted itself in her heart though, and she asked, “But if the branches grow too long, wouldn’t they break off someday?”

“A wise question,” said Yaddle. The old master sat for a moment, quiet, clearly thinking on her words. “Ways we have to slow it—supplant and support these branches we can,” she said slowly, “But if they must fall, then stop them, we cannot. Something to learn, all Jedi must.”

Then perhaps that is what _I_ can do, Avar thought. If I can help make the branches strong, then we will always be connected. But she didn’t say that out loud, and instead simply took Yaddle’s hand in her own, and bowed her head. “Thank you for your instruction, Master.”

Yaddle softly chuckled. “Twas nothing, young one. Simply words we all must hear.”

“Still,” Avar said earnestly, “I feel much relieved now.”

“Good to hear, that is.”

They sat together for a moment, the hush of the archives falling around them, lulling them into a peaceful quiet. After a time, Yaddle broke the silence first. “Ready now to speak on what led you to this corner? Though please me it would, few younglings your age seek out—” Yaddle glanced at the shelving labels, wry tone overtaking her voice, “—thesis studies on metaphysical theories of the Force.”

Furrowing her young face in thought, Avar pondered on how to explain what she felt—what she could hear. “I told you that I heard something,” Avar started slowly, “Ever since my crystal sang to me on Ilum, I feel I hear more and more, especially when I meditate. And when I dream, I hear sounds, and they are—the most _beautiful_ sounds I’ve ever heard. In these dreams…”

Avar trailed off, her thoughts floating above her words like the twittering calls of birds, unseen and fragile in the morning mist. She could hear layers upon layers of shimmering notes and timbre calling to her from some deep, fathomless distance, telling her to set herself adrift and follow them, to become _one_ with them. And for a single, terrifying moment, she didn’t quite want to say no anymore.

A gentle hand jolted her out of her drifting daze. “Anchor yourself, Avar,” Yaddle urged. “Around you, focus you must. Upon the floor, the steps of the passing archivist. Upon the shelves, the—"

“—the hum of the holobooks,” Avar breathed out, eyes squeezed shut with effort. “I—my apologies, Master.” Avar opened her eyes, embarrassed and shaken. She’d never felt like that before, and she clenched her fists to stop them from trembling. What was happening to her?

“Worry not,” Yaddle said. “Call to all of us, the Force does. Learn to control it, you will someday. But here in the present, you must stay."

Avar shook the last vestiges of the distant song away. “Yes... of course, Master." She began her story again hesitantly, still unsettled by what she had felt. "What I meant before was—those sounds—it’s as if… as if all of them were coming together to make a song like I’ve never heard before. And however far that song could reach, I could hear and touch everything, too. And I wanted that so _badly_ , to see how far and deep it could go.”

For a long while, Yaddle did not speak. Mustering up her courage, Avar peeked through her blonde bangs to look at the wizened master. “I’m not going crazy, am I, Master?” Avar whispered with apprehension.

Yaddle stirred, and looked upon the anxious girl. The wrinkles around her eyes softened. “Crazy, you are not. But much to think on, you’ve given me.”

Avar relaxed, but a lump of curiosity had lodged in her chest. “What do you mean?”

“To where did your song lead you today?”

A bit startled by the sudden turn of questioning, Avar nonetheless pointed into a secluded corner just past their row of aisles, where a set of doors hid themselves. Somehow, Avar knew with dead certainty that the song she’d heard was coming from behind them. Even now, a quiet, strained melody floated to her from that direction.

A rustle came from behind her, and Avar turned around with some surprise to see Master Yaddle slowly rising to her feet. “Master?” Avar said uncertainly.

“Curious I am, I think, to find out what—or _who_ —calls you.”

“But—I’m not allowed in there!”

“With me, are you not? Enough, I hope I am,” Yaddle said with mirth, winking slowly at Avar. “And some scholar and teacher I would be, if I denied such a curious young mind.”

* * *

They made their way through the archives, and Yaddle was patient as Avar would pause every now and then, listening intently, before leading them farther and farther down into deeper and older depths of the Archives. With each level they descended, Yaddle’s face sunk further into thought

The song grew louder and louder, and finally, Avar stopped at an old door. They were so deep in the bowels of the Archives that the hallways were lit with a dim, flickering green glow, unlike the bright white lights of the upper levels. “Here,” she breathed, anticipation and apprehension clashing equally.

Yaddle hummed contemplatively ad hobbled to the door, placing a reverent hand on the rusted sliver doors. “Long it has been, since my eyes have laid upon this door. Know what this door leads to, young Kriss?”  
  
Avar shook her head.

“Old, old records of the Jedi, behind that door they sleep. Holocrons of the greatest knights and masters of the Old Republic. Preserved through the Second Sith War and a great Jedi Purge by one of my predecessors—though lost to history his name was, called him the Disciple, they did, for his love of knowledge and learning.”

Avar looked upon the door with renewed awe and admiration. “What did the Disciple save?” Avar asked eagerly, “What’s in the holocrons?”

“Journals, memories, teachings—long forgotten by most, but live on in here, they do. And perhaps answers to your questions.”

With a wave of her hand, the doors opened, and Yaddle beckoned Avar, her eyes glowing almost eerily in the gloom. Avar stepped in cautiously, still in awe of what was around her. Rows of holocrons shone on the walls, pulsing rhythmically with soft blue lights. The sight stole her breath away. These holocrons must be thousands and thousands of years old—older even than Master Yoda! For them to have survived through so much war and destruction and death unscathed… Avar could barely fathom that. And she, a mere initiate (not even a padawan!), was being allowed to walk among the holocrons of these ancient masters. Oh, Stellan would be so envious—she couldn’t wait to tell him.

As she stood in the center of the room, bathed in the light of knowledge older than millennia, the song Avar had heard since she stepped in the Archives today sang even louder. Pulled by the melody, her mind focused singularly upon it like a conductor’s baton, Avar approached a holocron that looked like any other in the room. She pulled it off its stand and held it close to her heart.

It felt alive, a metronome heartbeat beating in time with her own.

“Called to you, _this_ one did?” For first time, Avar heard a catch in Master Yaddle’s voice, and when she chanced a glance at the old Jedi’s face, Avar thought she caught a glimpse of calm understanding and disbelief in equal parts.

“It did,” Avar replied, hushed. “Should I open it?”

Yaddle nodded her assent, a knowing look in her eyes, and stepped back. Avar closed her eyes, and concentrated on the tune twisting its way up from the holcron. She followed every note, every rest, every bar and phrase of music until she reached the beginning, and with a click, the holocron flared with a high, clear ting and slid open with a burst of light.

It felt like a greeting, a welcome.

When Avar opened her eyes again, a small, flickering figure of a young woman dressed in embroidered robes that were of both unfamiliar, yet familiar style, stood before her. The woman opened her mouth, and over the vast and nigh incomprehensible distance of nearly three thousand years, a melodic and accented voice flowed forth as clearly as silver chimes.

“I am Bastila Shan, Knight of the Jedi Order. In the 21,101st year by reckoning of the founding of the Republic, I come before you to record my knowledge and skills of the Force, and my experiences and journeys in this time of strife. In the first chapter, I speak of the intricacies of a rare ability I possess, of which I do not expect to meet another Jedi with kindred abilities within my lifetime. Instead, I place within this my hopes that a young Jedi gifted with a power like mine may find guidance and instruction in my teachings one faraway day in the future, and further aid the Jedi and the ideals we believe in.”

The hologram paused, and though Avar knew it was impossible, she felt like those piercing blue eyes were looking straight into her own.

“Though my ability has had several names throughout history, the masters on Dantooine called it _battle meditation_ …”

**Author's Note:**

> This was an interesting challenge to write Yaddle and Avar when we don't have much to go on for their characters in canon, especially trying to work backwards from adult Avar to young Avar. Wookieepedia told me Yaddle was a scholar, and I thought on how Avar's ability might reflect upon her own personality, as well as trying to incorporate my own vague theories on future tension between Avar, Stellan, and Elzar based on the LotJ epilogue.
> 
> Hopefully it worked out—let me know in the comments! :)


End file.
